Mathematical study of two-variable systems with adaptive numerical methods

In this paper, we consider reaction–diffusion systems arising from two-component predator–prey models with Smith growth functional response. The mathematical approach used here is in two folds since the time-dependent partial differential equations consist of both linear and nonlinear terms. We discretize the stiff or moderately stiff term with the fourth-order difference operator and advance the resulting nonlinear system of ordinary differential equations with the two competing families of the exponential time differencing (ETD) schemes, and we analyze them for stability. Numerical comparison between these two methods for solving various predator–prey population models with functional responses are also presented. Numerical results show that the techniques require less computational work. Also in the numerical results, some emerging spatial patterns are unveiled.